


Sunset on Palaven

by KestrelShrike



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Northern Lights, Post ME3, Stars, happy endings, prompt, sunset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-07 00:05:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13422471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestrelShrike/pseuds/KestrelShrike
Summary: This was for the prompt 'stars' given to me on Tumblr. Let me know what you think!





	Sunset on Palaven

They broke through Palaven’s atmosphere in the early afternoon, shuttle glinting and casting long shadows against the rocks and debris.

Logically, Shrike Shepard knew that Palaven had been hit hard by the Reapers. Fuck, they all had taken a beating. But seeing it all spread out before her really brought the scale of the destruction home. “Shit, Garrus. Is there anything left?” 

Leaning and looking was not especially conducive to driving a shuttle. As she craned her neck to try and see a small city that now lay in partial ruins, Garrus grabbed the wheel from her hands. “Shepard, please don’t crash and kill us after we survived this much.” Right. Some things never changed, and that included her driving. Factor in two prosthetic legs and it may have gotten worse, if anything.

The journey passed by in silence, Shepard trying to catch sight of things through the windscreen without sending them into a fiery death spiral. She couldn’t drive with music on; something in those faint strains brought back memories both good and bad, pulling her into them until she couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

“It’s not bad. Compared to Earth, I mean. We’ll rebuild. If the hierarchy is good at anything, it’s bureaucratic bullshit that’s going to mobilize everyone left to rebuild.” Maybe Garrus had a point. It wasn’t as if Shepard had much of a point of comparison; she hadn’t seen Palaven before the war. Maybe it was always this… rocky. Maybe that wasn’t rubble, but just a cluster of natural landscape that happened to look slightly like something that was man made. Or turian made, such as it was. “Looks prettier than London.” Fair point.

With skill that would have made Joker proud, Shepard piloted the shuttle past the ruins onto a series of vast plains, for lack of a better word. It was relatively untouched out here; what little towns there were hadn’t been large enough for the Reapers to truly target. Some showed bullet holes and burnt battle scars, but they had suffered few casualties. Life here was moving on, even it was slowly. There was even tourism again, though travel had become almost impossible for most residents of the galaxy. At least it made it easier to book a place for a good rate, a thought that she immediately berated herself for. So many deaths and at least half of them her fault and she was making jokes?

“Hey, Shepard? Come back to me.” Garrus’ voice brought her back. She was still sitting in the driver’s seat, fingers clutched around the wheel, eyes sliding off the burnt remains of some small building. Back. Right. Palaven. That’s where they were.

Garrus could step free of the shuttle and take a deep breath of home air, something like relief coming over his face, shoulders sagging slightly forward. It wasn’t so easy for Shepard; Palaven’s natural radiation would shred through her skin in no time, leaving her stuck in a suit until they were safely inside. The layer against the world made it feel less real, more isolated; if only she could have a barrier with her at all times.

Before them lay a series of glass geodesic domes, made of reinforced steel and something that prevented harmful rays from soaking through. There were eight of them neatly lined up, all unoccupied. Shepard and Garrus would be the only visitors for quite some time.

There were some privileges saving the galaxy granted you, one of which was automatic check-in through a VI, rather than having to deal with any officious hotel staff whose eyes tended to roam from her face down to her legs, twin, gently curved carbon-fiber limbs that held very little resemblance to the more typical flesh and blood appendages. There was no one here but them, and when Garrus held his palm up to a scanner, the door to a metal tube that connected to the first of the domes opened with a green light and a pleasant chime. Home sweet home, at least for tonight.

It was a relief to take her helmet off when the decontamination procedures were through. The place prided itself on cleanliness- ‘so pure that a quarian could visit!’ But the sun had sunk even lower, the first hints of something more appearing on the horizon. It would give Shepard enough time to strip off her armor, back to Garrus, refusing his help as her fingers went through buckles and straps with practiced ease, eyes resting on the N7 logo for a minute.

“Hurry up Shepard, or you’re going to miss the show.” As before, Garrus dragged her back to reality, already resting on a couch clearly designed more for turians than for anything else, the cushions slightly swayed to accomodate a carapace, so high off the ground that her feet were dangling almost comically.

Within the crux of Garrus’ arm, Shepard felt comfortable. “Do you think we deserve this?” she asked as she settled in, his warmth and his scent, gunmetal and some spice she couldn’t name, settling over her.

“I can’t think of anyone who deserves this more than you. Besides, it sure beats elcor Shakespeare.” Ah, yes. A production they hadn’t yet managed to catch, thankfully.

Unlike the stage show, this was one purely natural. On the far north of Palaven’s surface, the radiation and the magnetic atmosphere combined in a way that was only a shallow echo elsewhere. First there was the briefest suggestion of something red to interrupt the blueish green of the sky, and then it spread and spread until it was almost like a dense fog. Orange shot throughout, and then purple and pink. It was like a sunset on Earth, if it had been dialed up to eleven and attained some kind of density that almost looked as if she could run her fingers through it. Together, the two sat rapt, like children in front of a nature vid.

“You ever seen this before?”

“We never had the time to visit. Not with boot camp and then mom, and then everything else,” Garrus answered, arm pulling her closer until Shepard’s head rested on his shoulder. “Always wanted to though. I think Solana did once, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was like. Said you had to experience it for yourself.” 

Within the red fog, the first pinpricks of light appeared. The show was far from over, but Shepard’s eyes grew heavy and she found herself nodding off, feeling… safe. What a strange feeling.

When she woke up, it must have been a few hours later. The smell of something burning reached her nostrils and she jolted up, reaching for a gun that wasn’t there. “Vakarian, status report!” The words were garbled from the haze of sleep. 

“I, uh, may have burnt dinner Shepard. But look at the sky!” He was quick to distract her from the flames he was combatting on the stove and the… whatever it was he was scraping off a plate and dumping into a trash can. Only a turian could make an MRE look good.

Fires successfully fought, Garrus rejoined her on the couch, inviting Shepard to lay her head in his lap and simply stare upwards through the glass. There wasn’t a hint of red now, but a flicker of green and blue dancing and growing until the sky was streaked with it in a never-ending pattern that moved every time she blinked. Her hands found his, their fingers intertwining and resting on her chest. He wasn’t comfortable in a traditional sense, but there was nowhere in the galaxy she would rather be.

“It might have all been worth this,” Garrus said, and she found she couldn't’ argue with that.


End file.
